A United Nations employee was caught with child pornography as he entered the country last week at Halifax Stanfield International Airport.

Jose Antonio Ortega Osona, 40, a Spanish citizen who lives in New York, pleaded guilty Friday in Dartmouth provincial court to a Criminal Code charge of possessing child pornography and a Customs Act charge of smuggling prohibited goods.
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Portable memory devices found in his backpack contained more than 800 images of hard-core child pornography, some involving a girl who appeared to be about five years old.

Associate Chief Judge Brian Gibson sentenced Mr Ortega Orsona to only 90 days!  With double credit for time spent in remand since his arrest on 9 April, he has 72 days left to serve.

The scumbag’s lawyer said his client expects to lose his job with the UN. The news story doesn’t say, but I hope he will be deported upon his release and ordered not to enter Canada again.

According to the United Nations, more than 5,000 women and girls each year are victims of “honor crimes”. Committed by relatives, these crimes – the most extreme form is death – intend to punish behavior deemed immoral, a relationship regarded as illegal, such as simply talking with a neighbor. For the UN, honor crimes are a gross violation of human rights. To educate the people of Geneva and professionals involved in the subject to the reality of honor crimes, the Office of Human Rights, in partnership with the Association Araignées Artisanes de Paix, is organizing a symposium on violence against women in the name of honor.

At this symposium, the documentary “Killed for honor” relating the story of Doaa, 17 years old, stoned to death for talking to a young man of another faith, will be screened in the presence director, Mr. Giawdat Sofi.

In the afternoon will also be an opportunity to discuss the role of government in the fight against honor crimes, the health of victims, the serious violation of human rights of women that these crimes constitute, and finally the situation in Iraqi Kurdistan.

h/t: International Campaign Against Honour Killings

This video was made available by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), which today launched an international campaign to raise public awareness about human trafficking. Several high-tech publicity tools are being utilised to draw attention to the fight against modern slavery, including Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.

It’s called the Blue Heart Campaign against Human Trafficking. Campaign supporters are asked to post a blue heart on their website or Facebook profile.

Human trafficking is a crime that strips people of their rights, ruins their dreams, and robs them of their dignity. It is a crime that shames us all. Human trafficking is a global problem and no country is immune. Millions of victims are entrapped, and exploited every year in this modern form of slavery. To rally world public opinion against human trafficking, UNODC is launching the Blue Heart Campaign.

By wearing the Blue Heart you raise awareness of this crime and join the campaign to fight it. The Blue Heart represents the sadness of those who are trafficked while reminding us of the cold-heartedness of those who buy and sell fellow human beings. The use of the blue UN colour also demonstrates the commitment of the United Nations to combating this crime against human dignity.

Click here to download a Blue Heart and show your support for this campaign against enslavement.

It is estimated that 800,000 people are trafficked across international boundaries every year, and millions more are bought and sold within their own countries. Last month, the UNODC released a report showing that most countries are ignoring or denying the trade in human beings.

This blogger has been very critical of the United Nations on many occasions, but the UN is to be commended for its work on this issue. Human trafficking—the modern-day slave trade—is a barbaric practice abhorrent to all civilised people.

Hate speech and anti-conversion laws are cropping up around the globe in what, on the surface, seems to be an effort to protect religious freedoms. In reality, these laws are generally aimed at preserving the rights of only one religion and restricting and even criminalizing the expression of others.
[…]
Sri Lanka Bill

It may be surprising to note that the most recent example of this trend is the largely Buddhist country of Sri Lanka. Seen in the West as a tolerant, meditative religion, Buddhism is the driving force in Sri Lanka’s introduction of a bill that would make it illegal to distribute religious literature or condemn any other religion, and would prohibit faith-based charities from operating openly.
[…]
India Anti-Conversion Laws

The bill being considered in Sri Lanka is based on several similar laws already in place in another unlikely country: India. India touts itself as the largest secular democracy in the world, but is in the middle of an internal struggle with Hindu extremists who want to make India a Hindu-only nation.
[…]
Apostasy and Blasphemy Laws in Muslim Countries

The laws in India and Sri Lanka, however, pale in comparison to apostasy laws that carry the death penalty for Muslims who convert to another religion. There are at least eight Muslim countries that prescribe the death penalty for apostasy, and many more where apostasy is such a stain on a family’s honor that Muslim fathers are even willing to torture and kill their own children for the offense. Many Muslim countries also have laws against blasphemy that prohibit anyone from speaking critically of the Koran or Muhammad.
[…]
Hate Speech Prohibition in UN from Muslims

Muslim countries are also seeking to make their blasphemy laws binding on the entire world through a resolution in the United Nations.

Our freedoms are God’s gifts to us to be used to worship and serve our Lord and to spread the Good News. In the face of persecution, the first believers prayed for boldness in speaking God’s Word. May that be our prayer today.

She alleges that the United Nations and NATO failed adequately to investigate reports of Albanian atrocities against Serbs in Kosovo in 1999.

“Madame Prosecutor” created a sensation when it was first released in Italian last year, largely due to the passage about the alleged Albanian atrocities. She reports that her U.N. war-crimes team had received tips that some 100 to 300 Serbs who disappeared just after the Kosovo conflict of 1999 had been kidnapped, transported across an international border into Albania and killed. What’s more, she’s written that some of the younger, healthier captives may have had their organs removed as part of an international trafficking operation. Albanian prosecutors maintain that probes by local authorities and the United Nations yielded no evidence to support the charge. But the charges may have stirred anxiety within the Swiss government, which hired Del Ponte as the country’s ambassador to Argentina shortly after she completed the book. The Swiss banned Del Ponte from discussing the matter. As a result, Del Ponte’s tome is on tour—without its author.

A spokesman for the Swiss Embassy in Washington defended the decision to muzzle Ms Del Ponte, but refused to discuss the reasons for the ban. Ironically, censoring her confirms one of the memoir’s main contentions—that politics often trumps justice and fosters a culture of complacency and impunity.

The English translation of Madame Prosecutor was released in January.

From the UNODC’s press release:

The number of convictions for human trafficking is increasing, especially in a handful of countries. Yet most countries’ conviction rates rarely exceed 1.5 per 100,000 people. This is even below the level normally recorded for rare crimes (like kidnapping in Western Europe), and proportionately much lower than the estimated number of victims. “Many criminal justice systems belittle the seriousness of this crime”, said Mr. Costa. Indeed, as of 2007/08, two out of every five countries covered by the UNODC Report had not recorded a single conviction. “Either these countries are blind to the problem, or they are ill-equipped to deal with it, or both”, said the head of UNODC. “Furthermore, some countries – including a few very big ones – do not even inform us about the problem in their midst. Either they are too disorganized to collect the information, or they are unwilling to share it – perhaps out of embarrassment”, said Mr. Costa.

Despite eyewitness accounts of abuse and complicity in trafficking of Burmese refugees by government officials, Malaysia and Thailand are among those in denial.

The Malaysian government denies outright all allegations of human trafficking. The home minister, Datuk Seri Syed Hamid Albar, has dismissed the reports as “wild accusations”, and so far refuses to mount an impartial and transparent investigation. But now the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee is examining these claims and the stonewalling may not work. Too many people have provided detailed testimony that is strikingly similar in nature to dismiss this evidence of collusion.

As for Thailand, at best its authorities are turning a blind eye to what is happening on the border, but in a number of cases it appears that its officials are similarly complicit in the trafficking of deported migrants.

Another disturbing trend noted in the UNODC report: Women are becoming leaders in the trafficking business.

WOMEN are emerging as the pimps of the global trade in humans with a third of countries reporting more female traffickers than male, a United Nations study shows.

The first international report into the scope of human trafficking, published yesterday, found a disproportionate number of female perpetrators, more than in any other crime, selling other women into slavery in countries including Australia.

Women make up a majority of human traffickers in 30 percent of reporting countries.
The above chart, showing the proportion of females among those convicted of Trafficking In Persons (and, for comparison, all crimes) in selected European countries, is from page 7 of the Executive Summary. (Click on chart for larger view.)

It is a tragic irony that on the 200th birthday of Abraham Lincoln, the man who emancipated slaves in the United States, slavery seems to be a bigger problem than ever.

Two journalists from the French-German cultural channel ARTE were asked to leave a meeting room at the UN’s European headquarters during a public session of a human rights body preparing for a racism conference in South Africa later this year.
[…]
According to a diplomatic source, the expulsion announced by the chairman of the session, Russian representative Yuri Boychenko, was requested by the Organisation of Islamic Conference and by the African group of states.

The OIC strikes another blow for free speech.

h/t: Infidels Are Cool

The Canadian Islamic Congress today added its voice to growing protests over Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s decision on Monday to have Canada vote against a United Nations resolution condemning Israel’s atrocities in Gaza.

Ottawa’s unwavering support of Israel in the current conflict, highlighted by its vote at the UN, is a break from neutral positions of the recent past in which Canada’s norm has typically been abstention from voting.

Wrong. Several times in “the recent past”, Canada has stood alone at the UNHRC against one-sided condemnations of Israel.

The CIC press release says nothing about anti-Semitic demonstrations in Toronto, Calgary, and elsewhere in recent days. In Calgary, as Ezra Levant points out, anti-Semites have chosen to stage pro-Hamas rallies in the city’s most heavily Jewish neighbourhood.

The Honourable Jason Kenney, Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism, has it right:

“It is shocking to think that flags of banned terrorist organizations such as Hezbollah are being flown in the streets of Canadian cities. The ideals these terrorist organizations preach are abhorrent to the fundamental values of the Canadian people and of all civilized peoples: freedom, democracy, human rights and the rule of law.”

If CIC also finds that “shocking”, you wouldn’t know it from their public statements.

The Government of Canada lists Hezbollah and Hamas as banned terrorist organizations under the provisions of Canada’s Criminal Code.

In 2006, the CIC called for Hamas and Hezbollah to be removed from Canada’s terrorist list.

Apparently Ms Williams has more integrity than the morally bankrupt UNHRC bargained for. She resisted efforts to water down her report to please the Sudanese Government, and the council ended up rejecting her report’s recommendations.

Jody Williams has no doubt about the hardest part of her human rights mission to investigate the Sudan government’s record in Darfur – the pressure she claims she received from UN member states to produce a watered down report.

She traveled to Africa to talk to everyone from government officials to people in refugee camps. The location she found most difficult to work in was the UN’s Geneva office.

In her considered opinion, the Human Rights Council is not really interested in human rights at all.

It led Ms Williams to conclude, “From my experience, it is a club of 47 nations who see their main task as being to cover each other’s butt instead of defending, protecting and promoting human rights in countries where governments violate the people they are supposed to protect.”

The HRC’s President Martin Uhomoibi says she needs to be patient.

“In my view, it is too early to be overly judgemental, cynical or critical. There are challenges in the council… perhaps it could do better but this will not come overnight. This will come when we learn to trust each other.”

For some reason, I don’t think the survivors of Darfur would find that comforting.

Canada was the sole member of the United Nations Human Rights Council to vote against a resolution condemning Israel. Strangely, the council’s own press release does not name the no-voter.

The Human Rights Council concluded its ninth Special Session today by adopting a resolution on the grave violations of human rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territory including the recent aggression of the occupied Gaza Strip in which it strongly condemned the ongoing Israeli military operation which had resulted in massive violations of human rights of the Palestinian people and systematic destruction of the Palestinian infrastructure.

In the resolution, which was adopted by a vote of 33 to 1 with 13 abstentions, the Council called for the immediate cessation of Israeli military attacks throughout the Palestinian Occupied Territory; demanded the occupying power, Israel, to immediately withdraw its military forces from the occupied Gaza Strip; called upon the occupying power to end its occupation to all Palestinian lands occupied since 1967, […]

It goes on and on, but you get the idea.

Al Jazeera names the good guy.

All European Union countries abstained and Canada voted against the resolution.

How do you like that, Toronto anti-Semites?

This is not the first time that Canada has gone against the approved script at the Human Rights Council.

East Timor was occupied by Indonesian troops from 1975 to 1999. Even as the East Timorese people were voting for independence, Indonesia’s armed forces launched a final, intense campaign of murder and destruction.

Blair was implicated in the 1999 East Timor church massacres
[…]
Though Blair was instructed to tell the killers — the armed forces of Indonesia — to stop, he chose not to do so. He did the opposite. He offered them support and US aid, instead, and the killings intensified. They culminated with the torching of the Bishop’s house (plus executions), a church massacre of perhaps 200, in Suai, a slaughter at the Catholic diocesan office, the rapes and assassinations of clergy, the burning of perhaps 80% of Timor’s housing, and the murders of more than 1,000 civilians.

Read the whole thing for a detailed chronology based on a UN report.

Adm Blair was the highest ranking US military official in the region during the final phase of Indonesia’s bloody occupation of East Timor. The Clinton administration tried to emphasise human rights and self-determination for the East Timorese but, according to a former US embassy official, Blair ignored his government’s foreign policy priorities.

“Admiral Blair undermined U.S. policy in the months preceding the U.S.-supported and UN-sponsored referendum in East Timor in 1999,” said Ed McWilliams, a senior U.S. embassy official in Jakarta at the time. “While senior State Department officials were pressing the Indonesian military to end the escalating violence and its support for militia intimidation of voters, Blair took a distinctly different line with his military counterparts. As Pacific Commander, his influence could have caused the military to rein in its militias. Instead, his virtual silence on the issue in meetings with the Indonesian generals led them and their militias to escalate their attacks on the Timorese.”
[…]
“The extraordinarily brutal Indonesian retaliation against the East Timorese and the UN teams in East Timor following the Timorese vote for independence from Indonesia transpired in part because of Blair’s failure to press U.S. Government concerns in meetings with the Indonesian general,” said McWilliams.

The East Timor and Indonesia Action Network (ETAN) says Admiral Blair is “a poor choice for intelligence director”.

h/t: Global Voices

Iran’s foreign ministry sources said on Tuesday that the Islamic Republic should respond to the Canadian-sponsored UN resolution criticizing Iran’s so-called violation of human rights ‘fittingly’.

“Canada has been deprived of positive relations with the Islamic Republic as a result of its anti-Iran resolution and its present approach toward the country,” the source said.

The resolution is due to come to a committee vote this Friday, 21 November. If the committee approves, the General Assembly will vote on it.

While he praised his close ally, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, Mr Bush effectively challenged the strict Islamic kingdom’s outlawing of apostasy, or change of religion.

Addressing the UN General Assembly, he said that the UN Declaration of Human Rights, adopted 60 years ago, enshrines “the right to choose or change religions and the right to worship in private or public”.

Mr Bush added: “Freedom includes the right of all people to worship as they see fit.”

Saudi Arabia is far from the only country in which apostasy is illegal. Fifteen Muslim-majority countries outlaw converting from Islam to some other religion.

Seven years after 15 Saudis hijacked U.S. jetliners and flew them into the World Trade Center, Saudi Arabia is leading a UN forum in New York this week to promote peace and interreligious dialogue.

Saudi King Abdullah is hosting the “Culture of Peace” gathering at United Nations headquarters on November 12-13.
[…]
However, critics question the UN interreligious conference being led by Saudi Arabia, which does not allow other faiths to be practiced on its soil. Like June’s Madrid forum, this week’s meeting will not be attended by Saudi Arabia’s top Muslim clerics, including its grand mufti.

The Christian Science Monitor points to the elephant in the room: Saudi Arabia is also leading a drive by Islamic nations for an international agreement to outlaw criticism of Islam.

Saudi King Abdullah, who initiated this week’s special session, is quietly enlisting the leaders’ support for a global law to punish blasphemy – a campaign championed by the 56-member Organization of Islamic Conference that puts the rights of religions ahead of individual liberties.

If the campaign succeeds, states that presume to speak in the name of religion will be able to crush religious freedom not only in their own country, but abroad.

To add a final comic flourish, Iranian students have reacted with horrified indignation to the fact that Israel is invited to the conference.

Head of the Muslim World Students’ Front Hojjat Khodadadi told IRNA on Wednesday that the invitation extended to Zionist regime’s foreign minister Tzipi Livni by Saudi Arabia, as the country leading the UN inter-faith meeting, means that Saudis have practically opened the door for normalization of ties with the Zionist regime.

Khodadadi said that the Zionist regime does not have the least belief in any religion and religious school of thought.

Right!

h/t for Christian Science Monitor: Persecuted Church Weblog